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The Nature of Our Nature 145 Self. Ultimately, one has to come together. There comes a time in a person's life when all outer attractions appear tasteless. When a person is in his eighties and you offer him what he may have liked at eighteen years of age, he says, “No, I don't want anything. It has had its own time. Now it is over. I want health and peace.”
The word dharma in Sanskrit comes from dhru, meaning to hold or to lift. Anything which holds you or lifts you when you are about to fall into the valley is called dharma. That quality, that insight, that dharma is within us. Once we know it, we will not be able to fall. We must know this. Otherwise, friends, in each step there is danger; in each step there is the possibility of succumbing to so many temptations. There are not only physical and sensual temptations, but also the temptations of inside hatred, inside bitterness, inside anger, inside rejection.
Once you succumb to sorrow, depression, or bitterness, what happens? As you go on thinking, the emotions go on increasing. Bitterness becomes more and more bitter. Sadness becomes thicker and thicker. Observe your mind when you hold bitterness toward someone. Even when that person is gone, the bitterness remains. The person may not know how you feel toward him, but the bitterness rots inside you, besmears your mind, and pollutes your sweetness. In this way, life becomes heavy. You don't know where such negativity will lead you. It takes time to wash it out, to clean the mind. That is why in each step one has to be watchful and careful.
A person clinging to bitterness does not like himself. Because of this self-hatred, he sees others as his enemies and feels that the world is conspiring against him. Psychologically, these distortions are called projections. They all come because one is not watching oneself. It is
